I am really rusty with my Honda and forgot how to even check the CELs. In all honesty this is the first time in 3 years that I have had to work on my ZC. My ZC has an auotmatic ECU so the CEL is always on, no big deal. I knew the valve cover gasket needed to be changed and was leaking oil slowly into the spark plug tubes.

I was on my way home on the interstate and I flogged my car coming off the ramp. About 1 mile down the road it just falls on its face and starts stumbling like its running on two cylinders. I assumed the plugs were covered in oil from the VC gasket. I changed the VC gasket, grommets, tubes, and plugs (gapped .44). Car fired right up idled at 1000-1300 then dropped to 700-800 and fell on its face. I tried giving the car gas and it just seemed to be running on two cylinders or misfiring.

Once the car was towed home I checked to make sure I was getting spark on all four and it did. I pulled the distributor cap and rotor and they had a little build up, scraped them with a flat head just to knock anything off nothing major. Car did not change in any way.

-The fuel pump is priming up, but does that mean the MPFI main relay could still be bad?
-If the igniter is bad will I get any spark or is it just weak spark?
- I m somewhat clueless on the distributor, I have gotten used to coil packs. How do I test it or does the presence of spark indicate its fine?
-How do I pull codes on an ODB0 car again....I searched but just found random code questions.

 

to mee it sounds like timeing to mee when was the last time that motor had a timing belt replaced. if you still have spark the you dizzzy might not be your issue.. to check cel codes count the number of blinks on the ecu it self. if no other codes beside you auto tranny codes .then try the fuel rail and make sure you got fuel coming up to the injectors. just cause it primes doesnt means it working properly. id check timing belt first.

 

It is possible for your distributor to be producing a spark but it still be very weak. One of my friends with a GSR had a similar issue last year. He was in his car and I was in my WRX at the time riding up I-75. All of a sudden he just started dropping cylinders. He pulled over and the car would barely run. Then it died completely. His dizzy just took a complete dump on him. After he got it towed home he got a new one and hadn't had a problem since. I'm not saying this is your exact issue but sounds kinda similar from what I saw with his car. There are a lot of things that could be causing it though. Ecu could not be giving a proper injector pulse, fuel pressure could be really weak, timing could be off but that would be unlikely. Most of the time with an interference motor if the timing goes the car won't run at all. It will just crank super fast because there is no compression. Goodluck

 

The timing belt was done 20,000 miles ago. I have three cars so it doesn't see a lot of miles. I m gonna test the igniter and coil we'll see if those check out good Ill buy a dizzy. Ill check the FPR I just wanted to be precise, just seeing fuel will not necessarily mean good pressure :<

 

I would swap your main relay out too just to see if it's a possibility of it being the issue.

 

Care to remind me where it is?


I just checked the ignition coil and it is within specs, the winding terminal was giving me a little trouble because of some corrosion. Normally I would've considered that my problem but when scratched a little it was fine. The kicker is the white wire from my igniter is not getting any continuity so this leads me to think bad MFI relay or a bad ground near it. Sad thing is I don't remember where these suckers are on our cars anymore. Point me in the right direction so I can track this gremlin down!

 

Found the relay :D